I Approve My Tax Dollars to do That: Make Gay Marriage Constitutional

One thing I’ve increasingly learned and appreciated is the art of timing. To get what you want, you have to balance a forceful push with consideration of current conditions and opinions. Decision makers have to be in a position where they can accept your proposition, whether that acceptance stem from external pressures generated by a majority or a change in personal conviction.

With Obama’s re-election, proponents of gay marriage have started to whisper about whether it’s time for the Supreme Court to finally take a stand on the issue. Moreover, time for the Supreme Court to declare the legitimacy of same-sex marriage through the smack down of California’s Proposition 8 and Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Valid point. I never okayed your marriage. You have no right to deem mine legal or not. 

Photo credit: http://harvardcrcl.org/2011/07/22/dojs-powerful-doma-brief-in-the-9th-circuit/

There are two potential decisions facing the Supreme Court. Though the two piggyback upon one another, the first is whether Congress can prevent legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New York, Vermont Washington, and Connecticut from receiving “federal benefits otherwise available to [heterosexual] married couples.” As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, this includes several aspects of reaping Social Security benefits. But the bigger issue relates to how the Constitution defines (or does not define) marriage. Does the Constitution allow for same-sex marriages or can it confine the legitimacy of marriage to only a man and a woman?

These graphs represents 2011 data illustrating how different age groups, ethnicies, educational backgrounds and genders support (blue) or oppose (yellow) the repeal of DOMA. In all categories, support for repeal outweighs opposition by approximately ten percentage points. I believe Americans are ready to make the change. 

Photo credit: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/doma-majorities-of-almost-every-demographic-support-repeal/legislation/2011/03/23/18226

Thirty-one states have prohibited gay marriage. While I do not agree with the decisions made by those thirty-one states, I concede that the Tenth Amendment gives them the right to do so. Neither my parents nor I have to live there.

This image is slightly inaccurate after the last election (Washington, Maine, and Maryland should be bright blue, Minnesota is no longer bright red and North Carolina did pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and thus should be bright red). My question to those who oppose gay marriage is how would allowing it negatively impact your life in any way, shape or form? How many same-sex couples do you know? Chances are, you know and are friends with them. Your children share a classroom with them. Why do you insist that these Americans be treated as second-class citizens? 

Photo credit: http://www.wingerjock.com/2012/09/30/the-invisible-minority-should-gays-be-featured-in-pro-gay-marriage-tv-spots/

That being said, I do not agree with the Supreme Court’s present silence on the issue. Thus far, the nine justices have not commented on whether they will accept a case. It is clear however from the results of the past election that the country is priming itself for change. Four years reversed Maine’s stance (in 2008, Maine residents shot down a proposition allowing for gay marriage; this year they passed it). Some of the very socially conservative states will never come around. They would not have integrated schools had the Fed not mandated them to. That’s why the Supreme Court needs to deem such prohibitions of gay marriage and DOMA unconstitutional.  It’s time. The country, though many may not initially like it, is ready. Such a case will not impact most Americans. For those it does impact, however, it will be revolutionary. Let’s legalize equality, once and for all.

I approve my tax dollars to do that: make gay marriage constitutional. 

I Need My Tax Dollars to do That: Support My Family Too

Imagine you’re 80. Your partner of 50+ years just died. You both paid your taxes throughout adulthood so you should be able to live off of your spouse’s social security, right? Wrong.

For the 131,729 same-sex couples who identified their partner as their “husband” or “wife” in the 2010 Census Report (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/28/census-reports-more-than-130000-same-sex-couples-say-theyre-married/), they will not receive their spouse’s social security because the Federal Government does not recognize them as married. As the proud daughter of a same-sex couple, I find it outrageous that my moms pay their appropriate taxes toward social security (approximately 14% of their income), have a Massachusetts marriage license and yet when the time comes, one will be denied the other’s social security.

This is how the Social Security Administration handles it:

“Under Federal law an individual whose claim for benefits is based on a State recognized same-sex marriage or having the same status as spouse for State inheritance purposes cannot meet the statutory gender-based definition of husband or wife of the worker, including one who is divorced. Therefore, for all benefit purposes, the Social Security Administration does not recognize such individual as the spouse of the worker.” (http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.03/handbook-0306.html)

photo credit: http://krystlem.tumblr.com/post/3729304852

The equal rights symbol. I have seen it on cars, laptops, binders and water bottles as a demonstration of equal rights for all families. 

The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment). Marriage, or more specifically marriage legislation, falls under state jurisdiction, not Federal. Massachusetts is currently the only state that grants full marriage rights to same-sex couples. Furthermore, my moms’ marriage license is not recognized in any other state (http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Homepage/About/Committees/GenderandSexuality/StatebyStateLGBTLegislation.aspx#MA). 

The failure of a state to acknowledge the marriage license of another state simply because of the sex of the couple when driver’s licenses are readily accepted is ridiculous. But the fact that the Federal Government completely disregards the Tenth Amendment in this case is ludicrous.  The Federal Government has no right to redefine a state’s definition of marriage. It needs to recognize Massachusetts’ definition of marriage so that the same-sex couples like my parents who work hard and pay their taxes get the same financial protection heterosexual couples receive. What the Fed is doing is not just unconstitutional: it is flat-out discrimination.